Believe It or Not, Prophet Muhammad Promoted Women’s Rights

Women’s rights. Those two words aren’t often associated with Prophet Muhammad or Islam, but they should be. Here’s why…

Anyone who wants to learn about Prophet Muhammad must learn about the women in his life. The Prophet led a community filled with active, independent and strong women. Khadijah, his first wife, was also his boss. Imagine that. Muhammad actually worked for her very successful caravan trading company. Khadijah even proposed to Muhammad and he accepted despite a significant age difference.

Khadijah was also an essential partner in Prophet Muhammad’s religious life. After receiving his first revelation from the angel Gabriel, Muhammad ran home to Khadijah in a panic. He was scared that he was losing his mind. Khadijah protected the Prophet during that difficult time. Eventually, she became the first person to recognize Muhammad’s prophecy. Without Khadijah, a woman, Islam wouldn’t even exist!

Karen Armstrong, one of my favorite scholars, writes that Prophet Muhammad loved and admired women. His wife Aisha is said to have transmitted more than 2,000 hadiths. She went on to educate the young Islamic community on the Quran and on the example the Prophet set for Muslims. Muhammad encouraged women of the early Muslim community to take part in politics and governance. Aisha’s achievements are a testament to that.

I will finish on a great story. The women in Prophet Muhammad’s midst once asked him questions about the Quran that resulted in direct revelations. The Muslim women were annoyed that the Quran had too many references to male pronouns, as if the only “believers” were men. Soon after this exchange, the Prophet received a revelation that placed women on equal footing with men. Here is the verse resulting from the revelation:

Indeed, the Muslim men and Muslim women, the believing men and believing women, the obedient men and obedient women, the truthful men and truthful women, the patient men and patient women, the humble men and humble women, the charitable men and charitable women, the fasting men and fasting women, the men who guard their private parts and the women who do so, and the men who remember Allah often and the women who do so – for them Allah has prepared forgiveness and a great reward (Quran 33:35).

So no, Prophet Muhammad didn’t disrespect women. Quite the opposite. The Prophet’s radical revolutionary ideas gave women their due right and status in the days of oppression.

To believe that one would need to ignore islamic orthodoxy and also believe that all around the whole islamic world (which is, in fact, composed of lands taken by force from other religions) all islamic scholars managed to misinterpret islam exactly in the same fashion. Saudis in Saudi Arabia, where islam was invented and where some can boast of a lineage tracing back to the times of muhammad? All misunderstanders of islam. Iran, where the 12th mahdi is allegedly hiding? Same thing.

“The Prophet led a community filled with active, independent and strong women. Khadijah, his first wife, was also his boss.”

That was before his first epileptic fits – I mean, revelations. What does Khadijah being a successful merchant has to do with women’s rights under islam?

“Khadijah was also an essential partner in Prophet Muhammad’s religious life. After receiving his first revelation from the angel Gabriel, Muhammad ran home to Khadijah in a panic. He was scared that he was losing his mind.”

There’s also another episode where muhammad received revelations from Satan and couldn’t tell the difference. Imagine that – a “prophet” (what exactly did he prophecized?) that not only never got a revelation from his alleged God, allah (all his alleged revelations were conveyed to him by Gabriel) but also couldn’t tell the difference between divine and demonic revelations. Did any of the Abrahamic prophets ever tried to kill himself after receiving revelations from God – YHWH, not allah – thinking they were insane or possessed by demons?

“His wife Aisha is said to have transmitted more than 2,000 hadiths.”

What do shias feel about Aisha?

“She went on to educate the young Islamic community on the Quran and on the example the Prophet set for Muslims.”

As direct result of that, she was responsible for the first muslim civil war. Great example indeed…

“I will finish on a great story.”

So will I. The aforementioned Aisha, whom both Karen Armostrong and Craig Considine have great consideration for, is recorded saying, in a hadith, “I have not seen any woman suffering as much as the believing women. Look! Her skin is greener than her clothes!”. This was in the context of a muslim woman coming to Aisha complaining that her muslim husband beat her so often and so hard her skin was green, and Aisha took her to muhammad who, as anyone who promotes women’s rights would do, chastised her and defended the creep who was beating her. As the quran says (4:34), you can beat your wives into submission: “Men are in charge of women by what Allah has given one over the other and what they spend from their wealth. So righteous women are devoutly obedient, guarding in absence what Allah would have them guard. But those from whom you fear arrogance – advise them; forsake them in bed; and strike them. But if they obey you, seek no means against them. Indeed, Allah is ever Exalted and Grand”.

“The Prophet’s radical revolutionary ideas gave women their due right and status in the days of oppression.”

Khadijah was a successful merchant before muhammad came into scene. The Meccans worshipped 3 goddesses: Al-lat, Al-Uzza, and Manat. How many successful businesswomen owe their success to islam? And what happened to the three Meccan goddesses under islam?

1. Khadijah was an independent woman in a position to employ men before Mohammed supposedly gave women rights. One to the “age of ignorance” I think.

2. Whatever rights Mohammed conferred on Aisha and however much Karen Armstrong thinks Mohammed loved and admired women, none of it protected Aisha from being raped (what else could you call it?) as a nine year old girl by a 54 year old man.

3. 33:35 says nothing about the relative rights of men and women, only that men and women who obey Allah will get their reward in paradise. For men that would be dark-eyed maidens, for women…well, Allah doesn’t say.

Is this really the best you can come up with the benefit of much cherry picking? Your examples come nowhere near justifying your conclusion about Mohammed giving women their due right and status, as you must know. The question is why you go to such lengths to defend the indefensible.

By the way, here is the view of a man who has decided to leave Islam partly because of Mohammed’s respect or otherwise toward women:

Of course he now faces the likelihood of death at the hands of particularly devout Muslims, just as do cartoonists, novelists, scholars and anyone else who dares to criticise the Bully Religion. Why does Craig Considine never address that side of Islam…it’s a mystery isn’t it?

I FEEL SORRYY FOR YOUR SICK HAERT . YOU THINK THAT YOU CAN INTER THE ISLAME TO PROMOTE WAR AGAINST ISLAM AND TO TWIST YOUR EVIL WAY GOD `S word that you will never ever be able and all his creation man,evil OR SICK PERSON LIKE YOU BECAUSE YOU AND YOUR MOTIVE WILL NEVER SUCCEED BECAUSE THE MERCEFUL WILL NEVER ALLOWIT TILL THE SUN RISE FROM THE EAST . SO GO TO SLEEP !

BTW, how are women’s rights in countries following islam? I hear last year Saudi Arabia let some women vote – heck, they went overboard and even allowed some women to run for office.

*RING* *RING*
Hi. Saudi Arabia? This is 1920’s USA. We ended gender-based voting discrimination. What took you so long? And hey, be on the lookout for Sultan bin Bajad and Faisal al-Dawish – they are bad eggs.